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Does Exercise Grow New Brain Cells?

“I’d like to tone up, lose some weight, get in shape, and get my beach body” are common goals personal trainers hear from clients, but what if a client said, “I’d like to grow some more brain cells”?

This may seem outlandish, but studies have demonstrated that vigorous exercise fuels neurogenesis — the creation of new brain cells — and slows neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Similar to how exercise grows muscle cells by creating new mitochondria (organelles that give fuel to most cellular activity) near the nucleus, exercise boosts brain cells.

While it’s unlikely a client would actually say they wanted to grow new brain cells, the unrivaled, unmatched and fearless fitness professional on the edge of the latest research and contemporary thinking would know exactly how to respond.

An often-quoted study at the University of South Carolina is worth briefly noting. Two groups of mice were assigned to either run on a treadmill for an hour a day or lead more sedentary lifestyles without such exercise during a two-month period. What they found in the brains was very interesting: The group that exercised had significantly greater mitochondrial development in their brains than the sedentary mice did, demonstrating that exercise can induce mitochondrial biogenesis in more than muscle — at least in mice.

And a study at the National Cheng Jung University in Taiwan found that when mice were allowed to run freely compared to being forced to run harder than they might otherwise, the findings were again indicative of noteworthy brain changes. Those racing harder had molecular changes in more areas of the brain than those allowed to run at their own comfortable pace. The researchers concluded that different forms of exercise led to different neuroplasticity changes in mice.

The University of Illinois did a study on humans that demonstrated similar findings. They compared brisk walking with stretching on tests of cognition. Brisk walking, with its increase in blood flow, induced a greater molecular cascade and therefore improved test scores.

Other studies on humans have demonstrated that when aerobically trained subjects were compared with age-matched control groups of subjects who were either doing strength and flexibility exercise or were not engaged in exercise, the aerobically trained group demonstrate significantly advanced central cerebral metabolic activity and improvement on neuropsychological tests.

The 1972 foundational work of Goodwin, McClowskey and Matthews, referenced in the